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Great Hosts!

It’s amazing the things that I’ll do to get out of lawn work. Yesterday, it was to hop in my car and drive for six hours to Belleville! Seriously, though, tomorrow is EdcampQuinte. It’s the second of a series of Edcamps here.

With the past winter and family birthday commitments, I was unable to attend the first event but managed to shake myself loose for this event and am excited to see the happenings tomorrow at the Belleville Public Library.

To contribute, I did sign up and will offer a session tomorrow as my contribution to the event. As I type this, though, I’m in a hotel and unable to get onto the wireless. Sigh. The joys of trying to be connected.

What was cool though was that, after signing up to do a session, two of my Belleville friends decided to be good ambassadors for their city and greet me, followed by heading out for supper together although they both had better things to do. So, Andy Forgrave, Kent Manning, and I headed out for dinner and as I’ve mentioned before, it’s like we last saw each other yesterday rather than months ago. We had a great conversation during supper – well at least 2/3 of a great conversation. I still have little to no voice. Whispering and croaking was on the agenda!

The gentlemen were great hosts and I got a virtual tour of this historic city as drawn on the table cloth.

After dinner and our goodbyes, I knew that there were a couple of things that I have to do. First, I’m a sucker for any municipality that’s located on water. I had to check out the waterfront. Secondly, I had to make a trip over The Norris Whitney Bridge. I took a quick drive along what I was told is the local Millionaire Row. There were some magnificent looking houses there and I’m sure I would have been more impressed in full daylight instead of the waning daylight.

Regardless, it was the start of what I just know will be two great days of learning. I’ve learned so much of the local history and navigation. I did make sure to FourSquare the bridge but Andy is miles ahead of me in check-ins. I’m excited to see what tomorrow brings.

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2 thoughts on “Great Hosts!”

Doug, it was great to get your message yesterday morning via Twitter. I will admit that your initial DM (a somewhat cryptic “headed east”) had me immediately hoping that you were undertaking the long drive for the express purpose of joining us today, but it wasn’t until I linked over to check the edCampQuinte wiki and saw that you had signed up for a session that I was able to confirm our good fortune. From that point forward it was great to get your progress reports as you made your way across the greater part of southern Ontario towards Belleville.

Dinner was a great chance to catch up. As has been commented on before, maintaining regular connections with folks via social media (twitter, foursquare, diigo/delicious, blogs, and Words with Friends — your move, by the way) means picking up a conversation in person is as natural as if you lived next door and we saw you every day. Welcome to our part of the province, Neighbour!

I found it interesting that FourSquare gave us extra points for our first common venue in months, citing the hotel for the OTF Google Workshop for Educators back in October as being the last time we had met face-to-face. Somehow it missed the RCAC Symposium in December and the OTF Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century conference in February! (Back checking this morning also confirmed that I am still Mayor at the Google Workshop for Educators hotel after all these months! Bizarre.)

As for your Bridge check-in, I’d been watching for that all afternoon and evening, and so I wasn’t surprised at all when I saw that pop up on my phone. I immediately showed your checkin to my sons — they both know of you (from Words with Friends) by your longstanding moniker dougpete, and are looking forward to meeting you later this morning. And yes, I’m many miles ahead of you on the Bridge check-ins! And will remain so.

So, welcome again to our part of Ontario! I’m inviting you to join us again in the future, even before we gather for today’s get-together, because it’s always great to see you and because you always have so much to share. Educators always have a great opportunity to benefit whenever @dougpete is in the house!